Loomis, box or planes: which head construction to use

Most head drawing starts from one of three constructions. Andrew Loomis starts from a ball with its sides sliced off. The box method starts from a box. The planes approach breaks the surface into a few flat faces. Each has its own guide on this site. Here all three are fitted to one head, the hard-plane head from our free head rotation reference, so you can see what each settles on the same drawing.

This page covers the front, the three-quarter view and the light. The profile and the ear are in each method's own guide. Only Loomis's version is quoted from a book; the box and the planes are shown the way our guides teach them.

The ball and the box on the same front view

The hard-plane head from the front with Loomis's ball fitted to its 3D model. The chin hangs well below the ball.

The same head inside its measured box. The box runs from the top of the skull to the chin, so the face is inside it.

Fitted to this head's 3D model, the ball covers the skull, and the chin hangs about a seventh of the head's height below it. Loomis places the face below the ball by measurement, in three equal spaces from the hairline to the chin, which he gives as an average. On this head they aren't equal: brow to nose base is about a quarter of the head's height and nose to chin a little under two fifths, because the hard-plane head has a long lower face. The cross on the ball is where the brow line meets the middle line. Loomis calls it the most important point in the head, because where it sits shows which way the face is turned.

The box on the same head is about two thirds of its height wide and nine tenths deep, measured from its front and profile plates. Because the box is drawn from the top of the skull to the chin, the length of the face comes with it, and its sides give the width of the skull. What the box doesn't settle is where the features go inside it: the brow, the nose base and the mouth are still measured.

The box turned to 45 degrees

The hard-plane head at 45 degrees inside the same box turned. The side face is wider than the front face; the small box shows it from a little above.

At 45 degrees the side face of this box is a little under two thirds of the head's height wide and the front face a little under half, because the box is deeper than it is wide. The skull sits inside it on every row we read, with the round back and the narrower face well inside the outer corners. If the side of the head looks too narrow in your three-quarter drawing, the box was probably drawn too shallow. The box method guide has the box's width and depth on all ten heads and how to cut its corners down to a head.

The planes under one light

The same head at 45 degrees, lit from the front. The front planes are lit and the side plane turns into shadow below the cheekbone.

The planes size nothing, so they come after the ball or the box. What they settle is the light. On this frame the front of the face is lit and the side goes dark along the edge that runs from the outer corner of the brow, over the cheekbone, to the jaw corner: the turn from the front plane to the side plane. The small dark shapes under the brow, the nose and the lower lip are cast shadows. Under the jaw, the head turns to face down into its own underside plane. The planes of the head shows the same head under eight lights.

Which one to start with

Which way the face points. The cross on a ball. Put it on before any feature, and tip the ball to tilt the head; how to draw a tilted head carries it into tilts.
How wide the side of a turned head is. The box. Its depth keeps the side of the head from shrinking as it turns.
Both at once, as in most three-quarter views. Draw the box first for the size, then put the cross on its front face: the center line and the brow and eye lines, carried around onto the side face as in the box guide's steps 2 and 3.
Where the shadows go. The planes, once the head is sized. Fill each plane turned away from the light with one flat tone before you draw any feature.
The face from the front. The box gives its width and length; neither construction places the features. Measure them: on the four heads in the face proportions guide, the equal thirds missed by up to about two fifths.

The box guide's last step joins the box and the planes: round the top and back of the skull, then cut the narrow side planes down from the temples past the cheekbones.

Common mistakes

The ball as the whole head. On the hard-plane head the chin hangs about a seventh of the height below the ball, so a face drawn inside the ball comes out too short.
A cube for a box. Draw it about 7 wide, 10 tall and 9 deep.
Planes before size. Careful planes on a head that is too narrow still read as a narrow head.

A short exercise

Open the hard-plane head's three-quarter view and print or trace it at the size you draw. Draw the head three times at that size: once from a ball with the cross, once from a box about 7 by 10 by 9, and once from the box with the planes cut in and the shadow side filled flat. Lay each drawing over the plate and check two things: does the back of the skull reach the plate's, and does the side of the head match its width from the ear to the cheekbone?

The hard-plane head is Study Pack 01, in Volume 1, and the lit frames come from the head lighting reference, volume 1. Loomis's own steps, checked on a second head, are in the Loomis method.

This guide is one step in how to draw the head at any angle, which puts all the head guides in order.